Editor's note: This is part 15 in a series on the life of Bl. Junipero Serra in anticipation of his canonization. To read other articles in the series, click here.

IN a little over a year, the Spanish realm along the shores of the Pacific had been extended over eight hundred miles, from San Fernando de Velicatá to Monterey, and three missions and two presidios had been established in the area. When news of the event reached Mexico City, everyone was jubilant. The church of the city...

Editor's note: This is part 14 of a series on the life of Bl. Junipero Serra in anticipation of his canonization. To read other articles in the series, click here.

NOW that San Diego had been reinforced by the arrival of the San Antonio, soldiers and missionaries began planning for further expansion. The initial step would be a sea and land trek to Monterey. Serra opted for the former. After a long and "somewhat uncomfortable voyage", Serra and the crew members of the San Antonio...

Can you sum up the life of a great saint who changed the world? Can you adequately convey the impact of a man who preached, wrote, and taught for most of his eighty-five years? What can be said about a young man who became a priest, a bishop, and then a pope, that hasn’t already been said? You cannot reduce this man to a book, but you can explore his life by looking at what he loved. The man is Karol Wojtyla – now immortalized as St. John Paul II - and the author who presents a...

The Catholic liturgical tradition regards the Sign of Peace at Mass as a disciplined and restrained public gesture, and not an affectionate gesture of intimacy and friendship. In fact, the peace sign is designed for people who, for the most part, do not even know each other’s names.

This derives from the fact that the liturgical assembly is not (and is not meant to be) a gathering of friends and intimates. In my view, it is a mistake to view those gathered in worship as friends and...

Editor's note: This is part 13 of a series on the life of Bl. Junipero Serra in anticipation of his canonization. To read other articles in the series, click here.

NO one can stand on Presidio Hill in San Diego and remain unmoved by the fact that here is the cradle of Christianity and civilization in California. In 1769, the area was still untrodden by Christian feet.

Within a radius of ten leagues of San Diego, there were about twenty Indian villages. Frequent battles had taken place...

The Hebrew Scriptures record more than fifty prophecies concerning the passion and death of the expected Messiah. The theme of the Suffering Servant, despised, rejected, and abandoned, anticipates his sufferings. Amazingly, a few veiled references to the resurrection are found among them. The parallels between the Old and New Testaments offer the singular and compelling case that Jesus, and no other historical figure, fulfilled these prophecies. The most explicit of them are found in...

As the minds and hearts of Christians throughout the world focus on the suffering, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus, we naturally think of the Holy Land.

Throughout much of history, in the land where the world’s savior taught human beings to love one another as he loved us, instead of experiencing love, Palestinians have often experienced the great suffering of injustice, war and foreign occupation.

Editor's note: This is part 12 of a series on the life of Bl. Junipero Serra in anticipation of his canonization. To read other articles in the series, click here.

THE third expeditionary force, the first to travel overland, departed for Alta California in mid-March of 1769. Fray Junípero Serra was to accompany the fourth and final arm of the expedition which was scheduled to leave from Loreto. Gaspar de Portolá was commander and Serra chaplain and diarist.

There are some comedies that walk the line so precariously between being raunchily funny and patently offensive that one has to wonder throughout, which types of people are going to love it and which people are going to be thoroughly disgusted? The new movie “Get Hard,” starring Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart in a storyline that utterly destroys any sense of political correctness or decency while often being raucously funny, is a prime example.

When we celebrate the origin of the Eucharist on Holy Thursday, we cast our minds back to the Last Supper which Jesus shared with his disciples on the night before he died. However, the sacrament of the Eucharist is related not only to the Last Supper, but to every Mass celebrated through the centuries.

The Eucharist is imprinted with the life of the Church from its beginning and is the “memory bank” of God’s people.